


fringes of another life

by kinpika



Series: lyrium high [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 14:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11419488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinpika/pseuds/kinpika
Summary: “I thought I should see how one of my wardens was doing. After all, Ferelden is rather south, last I checked.”“All this way out here for me? What will the others say?” Anders doesn’t completely disarm, doesn’t leave the door. Keeps his tone light, watching shadows out the corners of his eyes. It wouldn’t surprise him if she decided today was the day she dragged him back to Amaranthine. For all her flouting, Basilia was not above it.





	fringes of another life

Anders barely gets three feet inside his clinic, before he arms himself, dragging the staff from its hold at his back, in front of him and ready. Iron-wrought tension fills him, baring its teeth after years at bay. Like an old calling in his blood, reminding him of a duty he had abandoned long ago (despite being one that he swore he had continued, when he had lead the expedition through the deep roads). Yet, _yet_ , it was utterly futile, as he sees the hood, the furs. Smells the perfume and notes the quiet of Darktown was only broken by the sounds of an animal.

“What are you doing here?” Is what he asks, carefully closing the door behind him. He didn’t know how long this would take. The last time she had visited, it had been inside of thirty minutes. But before that, it was hour long expeditions through swamps, the Fade, the Wastes. An entirely different life, surely, and yet here his Commander was — sitting on a crate, not quite looking at him. At her feet, her mabari huffed. Both were completely unimpressed, and Anders wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“I thought I should see how one of my wardens was doing. After all, Ferelden is rather south, last I checked.”

“All this way out here for me? What will the others say?” Anders doesn’t completely disarm, doesn’t leave the door. Keeps his tone light, watching shadows out the corners of his eyes. It wouldn’t surprise him if she decided today was the day she dragged him back to Amaranthine. For all her flouting, Basilia was not above it. 

“That I cannot, for the life of me, seem to keep my wardens in Ferelden.” Finally, she stands, and by the Maker, Anders had forgotten how tall she was. He towered over the rest of their budding group, save for Hawke, but Basilia with her height (and just the way she held herself altogether) was mountainous. Unmovable. 

Once, when they were but gangly teenagers in a tower wearing skirts all year round, she had claimed it to be all in her blood, that she was Rivain born through and through. All the rumours suggested otherwise, but Basilia had simply been Cissy then, a different kind of girl. Not Basilia Amell, with all her fancy titles like Hero of Ferelden, Warden-Commander, and Enchanter. Teyrna. Arlessa. Plus a dozen other titles that had been heaped upon the mage since the end of the blight.

If there was ever an example mages could’ve needed, it was her. But Anders knew where her loyalties really lay, and her thoughts on Circles. Spirits and demons and blood magic. Forbidden magic, some gained in the course of the blight, and some from being huddled in a corner with Velanna, pouring over texts that were not wholly human in origin. Basilia continued to walk that thin line of complete neutrality like her life depended on it.

“What are you really doing here, Basilia? Kirkwall isn’t the best place right now.”

“Truly? And here I thought the shakedown from the local Templars was expected.”

Something must have shown on Anders’ face, as she was waving her hand, finally standing. “I had all my papers on me. It’s been long enough that people seem to have forgotten my face, and a King’s stamp is the only thing proving anything these days.”

Basilia finally steps closer to him, shifting layers of material out the way to present whatever she had been holding. 

“Ser Pounce-a-lot?!”

There’s a _meow_ that spoke of recognition, and Anders notes the addition of armour. Basilia had given his cat armour, and brought him across the Waking Sea. What kind of person did that these days? (a voice says one who expects something, and Anders wants to agree)

“Cat damn near clawed my arm off on the boat over,” Basilia finally says, after giving Anders a moment to compose himself. 

“Why?”

A sigh leaves Basilia, coupled with arms crossed defensively over her chest. “It was never my decision, Anders. Those wardens we borrowed after all that business with the Mother… I didn’t know what they were doing.” Anders hears it in her voice, just how tired she was. Prior to leaving Amaranthine, he had been involved in what the politics were. How the First Warden had been hammering down on her. Templars insisting to be in the Order. Orlesians and Marchers also providing more bulk to their number as a temporary settlement, and the rising tensions between them and the rest of the Fereldens ever present. And Anders wasn’t even going to bring up the Dalish, in between it all.

Never mind when Basilia had to leave for Weisshaupt to explain _everything_. Anders had joked they would never hear from her again, with Nathaniel arguing that he should have gone with her, Velanna disappearing at the most opportune moments, Oghren returning to his family at Lake Calenhad, and they all were barely holding Sigrun by the collar at the Keep — Maker, that really was another life.

Anders doesn’t let the cat on the ground, yet he doesn’t look Basilia in the eye either. Something of a distraction, to stop him from looking in those impossibly blue eyes. Lyrium was wearing on her, he could see it (the unfortunately white forelock was new, but he held his tongue in saying something about that). “Thank you.”

Perhaps, for once, he caught her off guard. Her response is jumbled, unsure. “You’re welcome… I’m sorry, Anders. I should have—”

He doesn’t want to hear it. “I know. Me too.”

There wasn’t much either of them could say. Vividly, he still remembered the night he had been all but smuggled out of Amaranthine with nothing but a purse of sovereigns and borrowed clothing to his name. Even the staff he had carried wasn’t truly his. Anything that had survived the initial blast was left in a chest in his quarters. _If_ it was still there, after all these years.

“There is still a place for you, if you decide to come home.” And Basilia says it all so easily, as if he had a _choice_.

“The way things are here. And the… people. I couldn’t leave now, even if I wanted to.”

“Well, the offer still stands. It always has. You were the one who insisted that you leave.”

“I had to. We both know how it would’ve looked, otherwise.”

At that, a muscle in her cheek twitches. “How it _still_ looks. The few people who know that you’re alive… Well.” Clicking her tongue, Basilia keeps her hands busy, smoothing the front of her coat. “You’re making waves, Anders. I can only smother the stories for so long.”

“I never asked you to, Basilia. You made it abundantly clear how covering what happened up hurt your reputation.”

“It’s not every day that your oldest friend decides to meld with a spirit you happened to pick up before defeating a demon queen, you know. Some things happen.” So light and flippant, it was a wonder no one killed her before she got to the archdemon, truly. Yet, finally — _finally —_ Anders looks her in the eye and sees just what she’s really saying.

“Basilia…”

Anders watches as she releases her coat, letting it drop around her again. Hands smooth the material, not at all suggesting she had been screwing it up between her fingers in — was that anger? Sadness? Basilia was emotional, twitchy, shaking off a discharge between her fingers that suggested she hadn’t been as active, that much Anders could see. Not that he knew what to do, as she was already heading towards the door, ready to move on to the next order of business. The ever loyal mabari hot on her heels, only pausing to nudge her hand and receiving a pat in return.

“What are you really doing here, Basilia?”

A hand wave towards where she had been sitting, and Anders notes a parcel. “Giving you a loan. Checking up on another friend nearby. Gathering a few resources and seeing if a few more wardens would consider helping out in Ferelden. Maybe even play at being emissary for the royal family, trying to bring people home.” A momentary pause, as she keeps a hand against the door, not leaving yet. “The usual.”

It’s the warden comment that really catches Anders’ attention. It had only been a few years, surely they were not struggling already? “Your cousin, Bethany… she’s a warden now.” Barely saved from the brink, but was being a warden any better? More than once, Anders had caught Hawke drinking to that thought, and he still didn’t know how to answer her question of did she do the right thing? “With Stroud’s group.”

“You said in one of your letters. Stroud finally reached out to me concerning her, actually, not too long ago.” The door was finally open. “She’s not handling it well, and quite frankly, they’re half expecting her to go to her Calling _early_.”

With another sigh, Basilia massages her forehead. “Just don’t tell my cousin that. She doesn’t need to know her sister isn’t happy. It would just make for an awful family reunion.” There’s a mutter that follows, one that Anders didn’t catch, but it seems that whatever tangent she was about to go on was stopped short. 

Basilia flashes the end of a smile, one that didn’t reach her eyes in the slightest. “Take care of yourself, Anders. I don’t think I’ll make it back in time to save you for a third time, if anything happens.”

Despite everything, how his stomach still hasn’t stopped rolling, how he can feel Justice pressing on the fringes of his mind, Anders laughs. Not the belly laughs he may have given long before this mess, like the kind they shared under candlelight in the Circle, but a short bark of laughter. “Third time’s the charm,” he reminds her. “Everything comes in threes.”

“With our luck, Anders, it’s usually by the fourth or fifth when everything really comes crashing down.”

“Take care of yourself, Basilia.”

If she smiled, waved, said anything, Anders turned before he would know. Finally sets Ser Pounce-a-lot down, fishing in the back of the clinic for a saucer. There was nothing in the silence to suggest that some fool had decided to threaten Basilia, and no one was carted in by the time he returned. Out of curiosity, Anders peered out the door, not seeing anything out the norm to suggest she had even been at his door, in the place he had been calling _home_ since he had fled Ferelden. 

Anders focuses on his cat, for the first time in a long time, not questioning if this was just some drawn out dream, that was going to end in some kind of catastrophic event. After all, Basilia would not be there to pick up the pieces for a third time.


End file.
